Caution: Reading This May Be Hazardous

It's been a few weeks. Some of you might wonder what the hell happened to me. Most of you don't give a shit. I'm with the second bunch. But I'm nothing if not anal, so I feel an explanation is in order. Actually I'm nothing, but here's an explanation anyway:

My operating system was invaded by a malicious virus.

The same thing happened to my computer.

The virus that invaded my operating system has been documented ad nauseum in these pages, no need to revisit that can of worms. The virus that invaded my computer is a whole different animal. Animalia chordata vertebrata mammalia primates hominoidea homo sapiens, to be exact. (Don't you just loooove Google?)

To be more exact: some limpdick hacked his way into my cyberlife and the cyberlives of untold others via an online newspaper (you know who you are!) which shall remain unnamed, thereby destroying all from within and achieving for himself multi-orgasmic electronic Nirvana or some such fucking thing.

My husband blames Bill Gates. Not that Bill Gates is the above-mentioned limpdick specifically.

My husband hates Microsoft with the intensity of a thousand suns. I don't understand this, but then, I don't understand any of this. That is, any of this electronic mumbo-jumbo. It's all Greek to me. Or is that Geek? Whatever, I am anything but.

Anything but, nothing but, I'm one big but.

But (there I am again!) I'll let you in on a little-known secret about all this electronica: it's based on magic. When I sit down at my computer each noon, I have but (and again!) to type a special hex known only to myself in all the universe, and TA-DAA! It's showtime. This is the way it works. This is the way it's always worked. If you Believe, it will Be.

Imagine my chagrin when I sat down the other day to read the news in preparation for a long day of Free Cell, doing precisely what I've always done for lo these many moons, only to watch slackjawed as everything on my screen proceeded to disappear. First it backflipped around and fireworked for a bit, then it exploded, then it disappeared. Believe me, it wasn't pretty. Like being at a deathbed.

Admit it, we regard our computers as Beings. Entities. As housing the Lifeforce. We spend thousands of our waking hours interacting with these Creatures, and one does not spend the majority of one's life nurturing a relationship with an inanimate object. Unless you're Cindy McCain, but never mind that.

I desperately want to blame someone (you know who you are!), but it's not Bill Gates. He has enough on his plate having to look in the mirror everyday. I mean, that is One Not Very Attractive Dude. You'd think that, as an ONVAD, the richest homo sapien on the planet might at least look into basic cosmetic surgery, if not total facial reconstruction. Come to think of it, after this last virus, I'm starting to look like an ONVAD. And a slackjawed one at that.

Give me H1N1 anyday, eventually one recovers. Not so with Malware, as my husband refers to it. Sounds like a cookie. Another computer term I know nothing about, except that one doesn't ingest it. Unlike my malicious virus, which ingested everything in sight and went looking for more. I swear I could feel it reaching out into the room toward me like some three-D movie monster.

Listen to me, now it's my malicious virus. I need therapy.

The upshot of this pandemic is that my computer had to be put down. I got shitfaced at the wake. And I lost everything. I mean everything. Felix, my electronic pet (is there anyone out there who even remembers Felix?). All my pictures. All my documents. All my Free Cell stats, not to mention proof that I'd actually played over 1,000 games (or maybe it was 10,000, but who's counting). All my email addresses, including 1,142 emails, years of lies and gossip gone in a nanosecond. And my cyber-esteem.

That's the electronic version of self-esteem, only with more cookies. Whatever the hell they are. All I know is they don't make you fat. They make you confident. As in, I can go cold turkey on Free Cell, no problemo, I'm just shaking because it's fucking cold in here! Or, So what if I lost all my email addresses, I still have at least...one friend...who doesn't have a computer...who's still alive (I think)! Or, At least I still have a husband (I think) who can cobble together some sort of set-up so this long-overdue post can finally get out to the masses whose very well-being hangs in the balance wondering what the fuck happened to Six Spruce, all due to the actions of that limpdick whackjob cyber-masturbator referred to elsewhere!

Come to think of it, my very well-being has hung in the balance since 1962, the year I was Queen of Greenhaven. It's been elsewhere ever since.

Be that as it may (or may not), I'm horrified at the straits in which I find myself. Make that straitjacket. Or is it straightjacket? What I mean is, this typeface sucks. These words are writ waaaay too large. This mouse is skittering around by itself on this unfamiliar keypad like...a mouse. This keyboard feels like one of those rinky-dink toy metal xylophones from my childhood. And they don't make those anymore. Not the xylophones, or my version of childhood.

Remember, I'm nothing. If not anal. I hate change. I abhor it. I despise it with the intensity of a thousand suns. And now, due to something new and spiteful from Nabisco, it's all come to naught. Or is that not? The point being, here I am, skittering around by myself on this unexpected clean slate, a new start thrust upon me. Like greatness.

Huh?

What I mean is, I have no choice. The writing is on the...screen. In a big fat sucky font. I'll just have to take it one new Free Cell game at a time. Starting with this one.